"Cough! Cough! Cough!"
Watching Hela take Thor's Mjolnir with an outstretched hand, Loki pressed his knuckles to his mouth and couldn't help coughing heavily a few times, masking the laugh that had almost escaped him.
He glanced sideways at Thor. His adoptive older brother, whom he'd known for nearly two thousand years and grown up with since childhood, had forgotten to close his slightly parted mouth. His hand, raised instinctively, was frozen in midair, unsure whether to lift higher or lower.
The "Goddess of Death," Hela, casually tossed the hammer from hand to hand, examining and playing with Mjolnir as if she were a wanderer who had finally returned home after many years, only to find her favorite childhood toy in her room. For a moment, it brought back all her memories of the past.
"I watched it being made."
Hela's long, sharp black fingernails gleamed with an unusual metallic sheen, like the weapons she often conjured from thin air. As she traced the Rune Magic carved into the hammer's head, they scraped against it with a sharp, grating clang.
She crossed her long legs, tightly wrapped in black-green armor, and continued with a faintly mocking smile:
"...It was forged in the dying star-forge of Nidavellir. I wonder if it's still burning there now. This Mjolnir was only a tool, made for the Asgardian crown prince to hone his strength. I have long since—"
Hela's right hand closed around the rectangular hammerhead. As her fingers squeezed, the mighty Mjolnir, forged of Uru and nearly indestructible, trembled faintly.
"—had no need of it."
"No!"
Thor's heart suddenly sank. A burst of lightning flashed from Mjolnir, and the electric current roared outward, filling the entire Golden Palace hall.
"Hm? What kind of 'god' are you again? Heh, you seem rather attached to